But page 404 says the economic extension allows the calculation of RU's for a world in effect creating a world budget.
So there is a direct link between RU's and the numbers of Battalions and Capital ships deployed by a world.
Kind Regards
David
RU, Budgets, and Navies in Pocket Empires
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But page 404 says the economic extension allows the calculation of RU's for a world in effect creating a world budget.
So there is a direct link between RU's and the numbers of Battalions and Capital ships deployed by a world.
Kind Regards
David
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
Which is exactly what I need to compute if I am going to work out how Lemish was conquered during the Rebellion. How many/what kind ships did Lemish have, and how many did the Vargr have in the invasion.
Original_Carl
SOC-12
You and I want the same thing, I think, Drakon.
I built the domain I'm playing in, and I'd like to use RU or GWP or whatever to determine political boundaries and influence. Determining number of ships and fleets and marines and whatnot are nice to haves, but I'd like the ability to do some kind of raw comparison first.
Having recently downloaded the T5 rules, I am new to this system, but the matter of interplanetary and system economics has been in my mind for years. In Pocket Empires, the military strength is based on the amount of RUs spent on military maitenence, as has been discussed in this thread.
However, the actual military strength based on Attack, and defense points along with jumps available and transport, if my memory serves me correctly.
One attack factor as well as defense points are the same strenght whether or not the TL of a world is 5 or 15. The differense is how much those points cost in RU on the world. It costs less for a 15 TL world for one point, than on a 5 TL world. The reasoning that in order to take out one TL 15 soldier it may take 100 soldiers to do the job due to the tech advantage. It would be more expensive to outfit and supply 100 men as compared to one.
It does not matter if they are infantry or a starship, one point factor of attack is one point. The problem with determining actual units that make up the attack point is not given. So the issue of how many battakions or squadrons remains. Hopefully as time goes on this info will be revealed, as to create the said formations.
For now, I think that the PE rules can give a fairly decent overview of the forces that a system or systems can put into the field. This also gives enough info to give an overview if you will, of the centers of economic and military power in the sector or subsector(s).
Hope this helps a bit. Just thought I'd mention it.
However, the actual military strength based on Attack, and defense points along with jumps available and transport, if my memory serves me correctly.
One attack factor as well as defense points are the same strenght whether or not the TL of a world is 5 or 15. The differense is how much those points cost in RU on the world. It costs less for a 15 TL world for one point, than on a 5 TL world. The reasoning that in order to take out one TL 15 soldier it may take 100 soldiers to do the job due to the tech advantage. It would be more expensive to outfit and supply 100 men as compared to one.
It does not matter if they are infantry or a starship, one point factor of attack is one point. The problem with determining actual units that make up the attack point is not given. So the issue of how many battakions or squadrons remains. Hopefully as time goes on this info will be revealed, as to create the said formations.
For now, I think that the PE rules can give a fairly decent overview of the forces that a system or systems can put into the field. This also gives enough info to give an overview if you will, of the centers of economic and military power in the sector or subsector(s).
Hope this helps a bit. Just thought I'd mention it.
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
Close.
After the assassination of Strephon in 1116, the Imperial Navy abandoned Lemish and stripped the Corridor fleets to fight the civil war. The Vargr from coreward swept through Lemish Subsector, attacked and conquered Lemish, along with most of Corridor Sector, splitting Vland from Deneb.
There are many details of this that are a bit fuzzy, and I have been trying to flesh out things. I don't know how big the Vargr fleet was, nor how big Lemish's remaining system defenses were. Many details are in the DGP material, which I don't have access to.
I would like to game out the initial invasion and occupation.
Original_Carl
SOC-12
That would be fun.
I have hundreds of systems to resolve, and I'd like to have a game mechanic of the complexity level of say System Generation that I could use to set political boundaries in a subsector, a sector and a domain. Then I can have a computer do the heavy lifting on my system data. Ideally this would factor in political, economic, military, and technology.
Did any edition of Traveller have a mechanic for that?
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
Pocket Empires is close, I think.
Lets see, you start with RUs to construct budget, from budget you compute military budget and disposition. How big army versus navy units are built?
For Lemish, being a subsector capital, with a pretty homogenous population, I think the system fleet would take up the bulk of the budget. Land forces would comprise primarily law enforcement and SARs personel.
Once you compute the naval budget, you can determine ships, facilities. One additional factor is the Imperial naval base on Lemish. Or rather, what is left of the Imperial naval facilities after the fleet left.
One additional issue is that Lemish owns Weyland. Some of those resources can be retreated back to Lemish.
On the Vargr side, they would have several systems and their RUs to draw from on both sides of the border. I don't know the exact route they take after they cross, but each system that falls will give the Vargr more resources to attack Lemish with.
It will be fun for the Vargr player.
Noted: Lemish and Weyland have been upgraded on Travellermap. Lemish formerly had 540 RUs and Weyland 5. This has changed to 1575 and 6 RUs respectively.
2 other points. 1) RUs may not be just hard currency in one's budget. It can also represent, abstractly, credit rating and ability to draw investment or borrow money.
2) Some complain that simply multiplying the population figure (-1) skews the rise in RUs terribly. That since population is represented exponentially, RUs should also go up exponentially as well. Someone has opined that perhaps RUs represent excess production, instead of gross planetary product. That seems more viable from a realism point of view. As population grows, interactions and servicing those interactions will grow at a faster rate.
A 10 fold increase in population would involve a 100 fold increase in possible two party interactions, whether it is dating, selling a sweater, or transplanting a kidney. All those interactions have costs, and that will slow the rapid rise of RUs with population. If you look at RUs as economic available after bills are paid, or something like "profit" then it makes sense.
Lets see, you start with RUs to construct budget, from budget you compute military budget and disposition. How big army versus navy units are built?
For Lemish, being a subsector capital, with a pretty homogenous population, I think the system fleet would take up the bulk of the budget. Land forces would comprise primarily law enforcement and SARs personel.
Once you compute the naval budget, you can determine ships, facilities. One additional factor is the Imperial naval base on Lemish. Or rather, what is left of the Imperial naval facilities after the fleet left.
One additional issue is that Lemish owns Weyland. Some of those resources can be retreated back to Lemish.
On the Vargr side, they would have several systems and their RUs to draw from on both sides of the border. I don't know the exact route they take after they cross, but each system that falls will give the Vargr more resources to attack Lemish with.
It will be fun for the Vargr player.
Noted: Lemish and Weyland have been upgraded on Travellermap. Lemish formerly had 540 RUs and Weyland 5. This has changed to 1575 and 6 RUs respectively.
2 other points. 1) RUs may not be just hard currency in one's budget. It can also represent, abstractly, credit rating and ability to draw investment or borrow money.
2) Some complain that simply multiplying the population figure (-1) skews the rise in RUs terribly. That since population is represented exponentially, RUs should also go up exponentially as well. Someone has opined that perhaps RUs represent excess production, instead of gross planetary product. That seems more viable from a realism point of view. As population grows, interactions and servicing those interactions will grow at a faster rate.
A 10 fold increase in population would involve a 100 fold increase in possible two party interactions, whether it is dating, selling a sweater, or transplanting a kidney. All those interactions have costs, and that will slow the rapid rise of RUs with population. If you look at RUs as economic available after bills are paid, or something like "profit" then it makes sense.
I had a new thought. I haven't thought it through, but here it is in raw form:
RUs create the target numbers for pocket empire-sized task rolls.
For example, suppose you wanted to maintain your squadron of heavy cruisers. A Heavy CruRon is, say, a 4D task. How many RU will you allocate to keep that CruRon?
Say you're kind of so-so with it, compared to everything else you're doing to hold your Pocket Empire together, so you allocate 18 RU to it. Your task to keep that CruRon is therefore
4D < 18
It's likely that the roll will be in your favor.
Now suppose you want to buy a new Heavy CruRon. On the assumption that it's harder to get something started than to keep it going, say the difficulty is one greater than that of maintenance: a 5D task. And you'd like the CruRon TODAY. You'd therefore spend 30 RU and avoid the task roll completely. Congrats, it's yours.
(Or if you're not averse to minimal risk, allocate 28 or 29 RU, knowing that the odds of failing are around 1%).
Assuming Regina has 5% of its resources to dedicate to its ships, the purchase would be 10% of its 300 RU budget, and theoretically the largest fleet it could reliably maintain is 300 / 24 = 12 Heavy CruRons. That's at capacity, no room for emergencies unless it disbands existing units.
And of course, if things are desperate it could try to hold on to more than 12 CruRons, but that's unstable. That makes me wonder what it means when a squadron is disbanded. Presumably that's not even mothballed - perhaps there are many things that could explain its disappearance. It could be repossessed, or sold off, or it could go rogue.
Original_Carl
SOC-12
Where do I get this Pocket Empires?
Nevermind. Found it on DriveThruRPG.
Thanks, Obama!
Nevermind. Found it on DriveThruRPG.
Thanks, Obama!
How did an RU change on a static map for 1105?
I'm not fond of moving away from canon, even if DGP was a bit dramatic at times. Better to adjust the UWP to make sense.
I haven't been heavily into T5, but it seems RUs need to be based on a more detailed macro economic profile not a UWP calculation.
Probably due to fixes to UWPs through the Second Survey effort by Don, Marc, et al. Also possibly an error in how RUs were calculated, though that's less likely.
RU gives us comparative world strengths by which we may play Grand Strategy. This is a thread for brainstorming - and note that Hans also had a problem directly tying RU to GWP or some such.
I think that it's not useful to think of RUs as Disposable Income. But I also think that's a good thing, because it lets us handily bypass macroeconomics and get directly to discussing wargaming.
Thanks for the summary. I read a little of the thread. RU is limited. I'm fine with the RU concept. building it out may cause more headaches because it isn't founded on a system wide economic platform but a global UWP. Remember UWP has average TL for the majority, etc. A lack of system wide approach to economics will always hold back OTU from establishing budgets. Now it may be too detailed but there is always adventure potential.
I was concerned about the x-boat lines on the map. Don was concerned that 20-30 worlds we're TL16 (Note: Most of those we're small population) and backstopped. I'm not fond of the T5 "change canon approach". DGP did what it did. Strangely the frontier (Deneb/Spinward Marches) we're elevated in the 1248 product from QLI.
TNE / Lorenverse confused things enough.
Marc is concerned about them. Start a new discussion thread for everyone to brainstorm?
I remember that. I used to be concerned about it, but am no longer sure if it's such a big deal.
I think the problem we're addressing is that there was no consistent approach to creating sector data, but there are significant errors in that data.
If you know Don, you know that he disliked changing canon more than anyone else I know -- even more than Marc. And yet he had a serious problem with the errors in the UWP creation process for Charted Space, typically on a sector-by-sector basis.
I would posit therefore that Sunbane/Genie data is a secondary source. Atlas Of The Imperium, on the other hand, is canon.
There certainly was some confusion created when TNE came out. I wonder if it could have been handled better, but that camel has been beaten to death by now. At this point in the game, they give us opportunities.
I do not see this prior in the thread. Apologies if it has been brought up.
Has anyone thought to use the conversions found in T4 Pocket Empires to convert RU into billions of credits and from one star system to another based on TL and Starport. There the thing that stands out in the formulas is the acknowledgement that LABOR (which is almost identical in both books) is logarithmic and fomulas for conversion take that into account.
This is found on page 41.
The computation of RU is similar. it involves the use of Resources, Infrastructure and Labor values close to what is in T5.09.
Not identical, but sufficiently similar that it should be examined for use.
Has anyone thought to use the conversions found in T4 Pocket Empires to convert RU into billions of credits and from one star system to another based on TL and Starport. There the thing that stands out in the formulas is the acknowledgement that LABOR (which is almost identical in both books) is logarithmic and fomulas for conversion take that into account.
This is found on page 41.
The computation of RU is similar. it involves the use of Resources, Infrastructure and Labor values close to what is in T5.09.
Not identical, but sufficiently similar that it should be examined for use.
Ackehece
SOC-13
This thread popping up again is interesting.
After reading the entire thing - could tying government type to RU be the way of figuring out CruRons...
I mean a dictatorship is more likely to be militaristic than a democracy or a fractured government and thus would tend to have more ships for it's size.
Think North Korea vs US vs Somalia
huge military (TL7 vs. huge Military and technologically advanced TL8 vs. warlord bands TL6-7
Population: 25 million
GDP 40 billion
Korean People's Navy was established on June 5, 1946. The navy strength during the 1990s was centered about 40,000 to 60,000 members en force; last projected strength (2008) is at about 46,000.[1] There are some 708 vessels including 3 frigates and 70 submarines: approximately 20 Romeo class submarines (1,800 tons), 40 Sang-O-class submarines (300 tons) and 10 midget submarines including the Yono-class submarine (130 tons)
Population: 322 million
GDP: ~18 trillion
The U.S. Navy has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet,[12] and three new class carriers under construction.[13] The service has 328,186 personnel on active duty and 110,882 in the Navy Reserve. It has 272 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 aircraft in active service as of September 2015.[3]
Population:10million
GDP:6 billion
Somali Pirate fleet - rag tag bunch of small fishing vessels and Ribs ~100
with a total strength of 3-4000men
see the following....
http://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-ships.asp
After reading the entire thing - could tying government type to RU be the way of figuring out CruRons...
I mean a dictatorship is more likely to be militaristic than a democracy or a fractured government and thus would tend to have more ships for it's size.
Think North Korea vs US vs Somalia
huge military (TL7 vs. huge Military and technologically advanced TL8 vs. warlord bands TL6-7
Population: 25 million
GDP 40 billion
Korean People's Navy was established on June 5, 1946. The navy strength during the 1990s was centered about 40,000 to 60,000 members en force; last projected strength (2008) is at about 46,000.[1] There are some 708 vessels including 3 frigates and 70 submarines: approximately 20 Romeo class submarines (1,800 tons), 40 Sang-O-class submarines (300 tons) and 10 midget submarines including the Yono-class submarine (130 tons)
Population: 322 million
GDP: ~18 trillion
The U.S. Navy has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet,[12] and three new class carriers under construction.[13] The service has 328,186 personnel on active duty and 110,882 in the Navy Reserve. It has 272 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 aircraft in active service as of September 2015.[3]
Population:10million
GDP:6 billion
Somali Pirate fleet - rag tag bunch of small fishing vessels and Ribs ~100
with a total strength of 3-4000men
see the following....
http://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-ships.asp
That, and also the nature of one's adversaries, the signs of the times, and other things.
But you bring up a fun point. Government type could affect the process of getting things done.
Ackehece
SOC-13
they definitely affect efficiency and expediency...
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I setup another thread for Xboat traffic.
TL 16 is not a big deal. It never was and the majority of the worlds are not that powerful. DGP was setting up the ducks in a row for the rebellion. But even if Lorenverse had moved forward it would not be a problem. Dulinor tried using it to an advantage but we never see it in the ship designs.
The RUs would have helped back then.
I think your first suggestion is close to what Marc thinks of it. But I think that the Traveller Universe roots everything in economics, so military/war is "economics by other means", and politics is also "economics by other means".
In a Grand Strategy game, I think RU is similar to Strategy Points, and the Economics-Politics-War game is akin to a Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock game. At least in the case of war, Tech Level is similar to Target Number for strategic tasks. Politics would presumably build its Target Numbers using Interpersonals. And Trade/Tradewar would have a third way. So you pick the most effective strategy based on how your system or pocket empire is situated, and hope your opponent doesn't thwart you with his plan.
Savage said:
You're probably right.[FONT=arial,helvetica]
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